John Benjamins Publishing announces a new work in Generative Linguistics:
Control in Grammar and Pragmatics.
A cross-linguistic study.
Rudolf RUZICKA (University of Leipzig)
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 27
US & Canada: 1 55619 911 2 / USD 65.00 (Hardcover)
Rest of world: 90 272 2748 9 / NLG 130.00 (Hardcover)
The claim that "...pronominals have phonological features only where
they must, for some reason", is strongly supported by the occurrence
of the null pronoun PRO as coined and introduced by Noam Chomsky. How
reference of PRO is determined is the main subject of control theory,
the subsystem of core grammar to which this study is
dedicated. Chomsky has not followed up his "natural suggestion that
choice of controller is determined by theta roles or other semantic
properties of the verb, perhaps pragmatic conditions of some sort."
But then, a great many students of control have engaged in exploring
thematic roles as tools most suitable for investigating control.
Shifting analysis of control to the relationship between thematic
features carried by PRO and its potential controller respectively, was
a turning point in control theory. Control proved to be a by-product
of satisfying matching conditions that exist between thematic
properties of PRO and its licit controller. The constraints derived
from them are not construction-specific.
If grammar and pragmatics seem to go hand in hand, their complicity in
determining control behavior is elucidated by showing that pragmatic
factors can be referred to by grammatical constraints. Data of nine
languages are used in the study.
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